


twice for a limb, twice for a stone

by thennevermind



Series: what we have to lose [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Ed has a history of being reckless and self-sacrificing, Ed has a migraine, Edward Elric Keeps Alchemy, Edward Elric Keeps Automail, Edward Elric Swears, Fullmetal Alchemist Ending Spoilers, Human Transmutation, Hurt Edward Elric, idk what this is, its not sad really but its not happy at all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23083315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thennevermind/pseuds/thennevermind
Summary: Opening the Gate for the                                t             mi               ewas. . .w r   o       n      g                                                             a       nn       e                                                                     t     i      c      id     e                                    ss   p    e     r                                   s                        p       u                                     p      a      i     na    t       o                                                      l        l                                                o      nn                                                           e           dall of it disappeared when the white encased him.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric & Van Hohenheim, Edward Elric & The Truth
Series: what we have to lose [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1917763
Comments: 7
Kudos: 125





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> honestly i just wanted to write about how opening the Gate felt for Ed and then some plot happened. if you enjoy, pls tell me and i might continue it

Opening the Gate for the first time was as if all the wrongness in the world settled itself into the cavity inside Edward’s chest left behind by his mother’s death. Guilt wasn’t the right word for it. Neither was disgust or fear or hatred. But somehow it was, all at once. It swirled thick as tar, an ocean of a black sticky sludge desperately pulling Ed down under its surface. It was a distinctly metallic taste as it entered his mouth, his nose, his lungs as he breathed it in and became one with the disastrous feeling. Every nerve on fire, every thought in his mind focused on death and horror and the torturous pain that coursed through every cell in his being. It was a stranger invading in his mind, unknown, unwelcome, unexplored and forgotten. It was pain, it was unholy. It ripped an unprecedented, unwelcome, primal horror inside Ed’s mind, never to be closed again. All of it disappeared when the white encased him.

Opening the Gate for the second time was the desperation for breath as Ed drowned under the sludge from the first time. It was more familiar, like the encounter of a barely acquaintanced stranger. Still, it tore through his heart, his entire being in want for something barely out of reach. It was breathless, a silent scream full of excruciation. All and any breath was gone, suffocating nothingness and everything at once. Pain and terror had settled in his chest long before; Ed couldn’t acknowledge the tenfold of more that was piled on top of it. Ed could only choke on his own screams, his own backwashing blood, as he asked for hurt again. All of it disappeared when the white encased him.

Opening the Gate for the third time was as if all the cells in his body were being pulled apart and put back together again. No, it didn’t merely feel like that, it actually was that. All his cells were pulled apart, dissected and compressed, broken down into atoms, before slowly building up again back in their proper places. Ed could say he knew how that felt like now. The guilt and shame that the boy thought he’d buried returned with the clawing of those sludgy tendrils. The solid shadows dragged his atoms apart, replacing them with the heavy and uncontrollable fear and torture that he thought he’d forgotten. All of it disappeared when the white encased him.

Opening the Gate for the fourth time was the anticipatory fear as Ed floated above and with all the shadows from the times before. It wasn’t stifling and cramped, but the pulling in his chest (the guilt, fear, and pain that never really went away) split open all the new and old wounds in his heart. It was different from that first time. The first two times it was unwelcome, unknown, unexplored and unwanted. Incomprehensible emotions came suddenly into the crevasses of an innocent child. The overwhelming guilt inside of his chest wasn’t an oppressing new force this time around, but an old friend came to embrace the life out of him. It caressed the untouched emotions that Ed left forever uncomprehended. They were embraced, squeezed tighter yet tighter as breath became unavailable and all Ed could sense was the smell of boiling blood. All of it disappeared when the white encased him.

Except, the fourth time felt too familiar. The kind of familiar that he thought he’d never encounter again, but so encased in his memory that nothing could be mistaken for it.

Ed’s feet stood solid on everything and nothing beneath him. His eyes were closed, something he’d only done once in this white expanse of space undescribable with simple wording. This place was the home and domain of Truth, of Knowledge and Wisdom. It held everything that ever was and ever would be, all together at once but never at all. The white space of nothingness and everythingness held no sound nor smell, no wind nor nature. It was a peaceful expanse of quiet, yet an insufferable void of stimulation. Gold slowly peaked open in the nothingness and everything around him, trying to decipher if what he felt during the transmutation itself was the truth.

“Hello again, little Alchemist.” Think of the devil and they shall appear. Truth sat before Ed, materialized of the static of the universe, one arm and one leg once belonging to Edward. With a tilt of confusion, Ed glanced back down to his right arm, assuming that it would be there. He was wrong, for whatever reason. There was no arm on his right; neither metal nor flesh. All that hung was his automail port. “Confused, are we?”

“That. That wasn’t– that didn’t feel how it was supposed to feel.” Ed murmured hurriedly, glancing around the white expanse for any clue of some sort. There was a difference in how he opened the Gate all these times. The energy and shadows pulsing through Ed were of different nature depending on what price he paid. Ed’s moment of search found nothing: all he could see was the blankness, Truth itself, two commanding Gates, and a glimpse of Alphonse sitting in wait.

“Your sacrifice has been made, little alchemist. Your choice has been sealed. I’ll keep your arm, I think. Considering you’re taking Alphonse’s soul back with you.” Truth’s wide, emotionless grin spread from one end of their static ‘face’ to the other. It was eerie, the kind of thing someone would dream about in a hollow nightmare. 

“I haven’t sacrificed shit!” Edward stopped forward, slightly off-kilter due to not having an arm at the moment. “I haven’t made my payment yet, you bastard. I was going to pay with my Gate.” At the mention of it, Ed thrust his thumb toward the Gate, pointing. His insides were becoming jumbled with anxiety. A swirling typhoon encased his heart and grabbed at his lungs. The shadows of guilt pierced his very soul as his mind raced for the answer. 

Truth merely lifted their hands, moving Ed’s stolen shoulder and static in what looked to be a shrug. The smile grew ever wider, if possible, or impossible, in the land of nonstopping possibilities and endless impossibilities. “Intent does not grant freedom from actions, only the context in which they were made. When outside forces act upon plans carefully laid, even the most knowledgeable and creative fall apart at their whims.” 

“Brother!” A desperate cry wrangled itself from Alphonse’s lips, not giving Ed time to respond nor contemplate the cryptic bullshit that Truth spouted. Ed’s golden eyes searched for the maker of the scream, only to find Al in the hands of the wispy shadows. 

“Al–!” Edward stepped forward once more, then again, then a few steps more, only to realize that he was gaining no closer to his brother. His only hand outstretched, fear etched into every scar and crease on his face. 

And then his brother was gone, the doors to his Gate clanging undoubtedly shut before disappearing altogether.

“What the actual _fuck_ is happening?” Edward’s voice ricocheted off of his Gate. He flinched at the return of his own voice. Truth was still. “Why can’t I fucking pay with my Gate? What happened to Alphonse?”

“I’m proud of you for realizing the correct toll for human transmutation,” Truth admits, their smile dimming as their form began to flicker. “The transmutation to end all future transmutations,” The doors behind Ed creak open with an ominous scream. “But someone thought you were going to pay with your life.”

“Stop talking bullshit. Give it to me straight, you bastard!” Edward heaves, eyes trained on Truth instead of the giant eye trained on him. He wasn’t acknowledging the thin, shadowy hands bursting from his Gate to capture Ed. His only focus was the flickering form of static Truth.

“You’ll learn. Enjoy earning more knowledge into that cramped head of yours, my little alchemist.” Truth’s form flickered out completely just before the Gate’s doors closed, trapping Ed inside.

Despite this being the fourth time Ed preformed a human transmutation (four too many times, in his opinion), it was only the second he could recall that Ed was permitted to see the truth. Ed floated in the expanse of darkness, information he could hardly explain beginning to crowd before his eyes. Wide gold stared unblinking at the onslaught of knowledge thrust before him, taking everything and nothing in as it flew by his unmoving form. Pain etched itself onto Ed’s skin, his eyes, his brain, his skull. His head was splitting open as if someone took a nail to his skull and began hammering in the hopes of splitting it into two. Sharp, pricking pain stabbed behind his eyes, flowing to his temples, making the minimal light around difficult to bare. His eyes squeezed tightly together in an attempt to curb the pain, but sight never mattered in this realm. Still, the information flooded on.

Eventually, whether he was aware of it or not, Ed began screaming.

“Oh goodness, Brother–” Al’s voice broke Ed out of his reverie, oddly close sounding. It didn’t have its usual metallic tint, that echo that came from being a hollow suit of armor. Confusion sprung over Ed. Hadn’t he trapped his younger brother in that prison of metal? Hadn’t Alphonse been cursed to never feel because of his brother’s foolishness? “What were you **thinking!? _Where’s your arm?!”_**

“Now isn’t the time to ask questions like that,” The detestable voice of Hohenheim made Ed cringe further on himself. “I don’t have much time left.”

Ed decided that now would be a good time to open his golden eyes. With the influx of bright light, everything came crashing down around him. The transmutation. The Gate. Truth. The knowledge. His brain began to protest, the migraine from before sprouting up again in the physical realm. Ed gasped, sat up straight, only to regret that motion. He was going to puke. All the things he learned… They were still too scrambled. Golden eyes stared unseen at the transmutation circle scratched into the ground below him.

“Here, you two take this. It’s my most recent journal. I trust you still remember Xerxian?” Hohenheim placed a leather-bound notebook in Ed’s field of vision. The eldest Elric was too preoccupied with deciphering loose numbers and making sense of foreign letters.

“I don’t… I don’t ever think you taught me.” Al’s voice was still close. Ed wished his eyes would move from their locked place understanding this new information so that he could see his brother, finally flesh.

" _I know it._ ” Ed found himself whispering in a language comfortable on his tongue. It was familiar, yet a stranger in his mind. He knew he learned and forgotten it at some point in his past, but somehow it was making itself known again. Letters he knew but didn’t understand flew past his eyes. The undecipherable yearned to be deciphered.

“ _Good. All my journals are written in it. If you can speak it, you won’t have a hard time reading it. This journal will help you find the others. It explains everything in them, much more than I could have said._ ” Ed nodded his head infinitesimally, showing he was following. “ _They also have our culture, our ancient alchemy, other than just my life’s story. Something for both of you._ ” The bastard of a father responded fluidly in the language (Xerxian, Ed thought). It sounded like honey dripping from both of their lips, at home in their golden bodies. 

“I don’t understand, Dad. What… What are you saying?” Alphonse’s voice suddenly was exhausted. Ed’s body felt heavy in its own right. All he wanted to do was sleep, to lay in the dark and ponder this new information in order to categorize it properly. His consciousness was slipping away, slowly but surely, his sense-of-self falling down into his new trove of information.

“Find my journals, if you wish. They’ll tell you everything. Edward can teach you Xerxian, Alphonse. I’m sure he’ll be a great teacher.” Al made a noise of concern, fright really, only to be met with a dry laugh from Hohenheim. It was devoid of humor. Ed didn’t know much of what was happening anymore. He heard shuffling. “I’m sorry I couldn’t teach it to you myself. I’m sorry about all of this…. I’ll say hi to your mother for you. At least, I’m excited to see Trisha again.”

“ _Dad…?_ ” Ed whispered to himself, as he felt his hair being brushed away from his face by a strong hand. It was gentle, but with enough strength that Ed couldn’t place it as Al’s hand.

He felt a breath ghost over his face, a soft declaration in the soft, gold language. “ _I love you, my sons._ ”

Then with the next howl of the breeze, Ed’s chest contracted in on itself. His stomach twisted together desperately, guilt and sorrow squeezing his insides as a rush of energy ran through him. His heart constricted against his chest wildly, the muscle hammering quickly with the pain of unknown grief. The energy gripping at his heart – not unlike how it felt to use souls to fuel his transmutations – and it that very moment he understood that what was passing through him was the weary soul of Hohenheim.

Ed didn’t want to think about how he could feel that energy, not at the moment. At the moment, the world turned black, and Ed focused on categorizing the ungodly amount of new things he just… _knew_. At the moment, everything stopped. All of it disappeared when the black encased him.


	2. wrong

_The temperature in the hospital room was difficult to quantify. It was neither too hot nor too cold. If he thought about it for long enough, Edward would swear it was one or the other. In some moments, there would be an overly cool breeze rushing through the room which would make Ed shiver down his entire body. After the quick pass of cold would infiltrate the room, it would level back out into the uncertain medium of odd-yet-comfortable temperature. He assumed they were regulating it as best as they could, considering the state of the patient lying in the hospital bed in the middle of the room._

_Alphonse lay asleep underneath the admittedly heavy blanket. Edward had taken to watching him sleep, happiness settling nicely in the pit of his stomach. He had a book in his lap, but it wasn’t as interesting as watching his brother sleep peacefully for the first time in several years. He would make some funny faces every now and then, not use to the feeling of dreaming._

-exert from "counting the wars and broken bones," part two of the "what we have to lose" series


End file.
